Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

Where will the data from the Labor government's plan to record the weight of every Australian child when it turns four be held, who will have access to it and how will it be integrated with other data that has been collected, such as immunisations? At the root of all questions about health informatics is the ability to assign data with supreme and incorruptible accuracy to the correct individual.

The whole of Australian society must give space and time for the many remnants of dispossessed, the constant streams of refugees, to express and retain the memories of their pasts. The succeeding generations are mostly made up of people ... who want to move on as swiftly as their minds and hands can carry them. But if we try to suppress or exclude the small, silent treasures borne in the hearts of their parents, we do so at the peril of our own entitlements to citizenship.

On the signals so far, water is promising to be a major issue for the election campaign. Water will be a conversation around many barbecues, as we confront problems affecting our daily lives. We will have to decide whether we want the confrontational methods of Howard and Costello to come up with solutions, or to trust a federal Labor government to work in harmony with the States.